‘Move out of my way, I live here!’ I was amazed to hear myself shout that at a tourist as I rushed through Soho last year. I felt that I’d finally settled in the capital. I was a Londoner. I own an Oyster card. I can give people directions, suggest bus routes and work out the tube system in my head, which is no mean feat considering I’m colour blind.

I always saw myself as a comedy tourist, but now I spend a lot of time in London and I love it. The pace is much crazier than in Scotland and the people dash around like ants on crack. In Glasgow, the pedestrians have that lovely zig-zag, pasodoble dance routine when they get in each other’s way. In London, it’s more of a ram raider’s approach to getting your own walking space. People will trample on you if you don’t move.

London is a cold and horribly lonely place if you don’t know anyone. Don’t even assume you can smile at a toddler in a pram. They’ll give you a fierce look and a rude finger. Smiling at strangers in London is something you don’t do. It scares everyone.

When I first came down in 1995, I spent days without speaking to a soul until I got on stage at night. Then I went back to the flat where I was staying and never spoke again until my next open spot the following night.

I recall the very first time I saw my name mentioned in the Time Out listings. I was so excited that I showed it to random strangers on the tube. I never realised how hostile and scared people are on the trains. In Glasgow I chatted to anyone who came within a two-feet radius. The only person who ever spoke to me on the tube was a guy who asked me if I’d seen God.

Even that conversation dried up quickly, because I hadn’t.

I made friends with a homeless man outside Gap near Piccadilly Circus as he was the only person who would talk to me, though I did have to pay him in coffee and ciggies. Sometimes I’d crouch beside him. Once I saw a comedy promoter walk past. He looked at me with a vague nod of recognition. I shouted at him: ‘This is what happens when you don’t give people a gig.’ My homeless pal threw an empty can at him. You can get away with that in London, though, because it’s a city that accepts all and expects it.

The best thing about coming here is discovering your own London. Mine was the walk from Westminster to Tower Bridge by the river. All those wee cobble-stoned paths that wind under arches and open out onto the Thames always make me happy. Maybe it’s because Glasgow is a river city and I enjoy walking alongside the water.

The comedy clubs in London were a rude awakening. I realised early on that any parochial Scottish material in my East End of Glasgow accent had to change. People couldn’t understand a word. Now my accent has morphed into a clearer Scottish lilt and my dad calls me ‘English Janey with the posh tongue!’The comedy scene is much more intense and professionally run than the smaller clubs in Glasgow. In London, every pub seems to have an upstairs room for comedy, but pubs weren’t built with rooms above the bar in Scotland. All our gigs are downstairs in basements or cellar-type rooms, usually smaller and smellier. The downside to London is that there are so many clubs and so many comics you can get lost in the mix.

The size of the city was something else I’d underestimated. I had no idea north London was so far away from Brixton, where I once stayed, and getting a train to a gig took up most of the night. I was late on arrival, the tube stopped running near midnight and I had to get a cab home.

That fare cost me almost as much as the flight from Glasgow.

Trying to get my Scottish money accepted in London was a horrifying experience. A shopkeeper in Soho refused my purple Scottish £20 note, so I simply took the painkillers I was trying to pay for and walked out of the shop. I had invented a new crime called ‘legal shoplifting’ – I had offered the cash but he didn’t want it. He still refuses to serve me to this day, which means he remembers me and that’s a grand and rare thing in London… to be remembered by a stranger.